Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Blake holds up his hand and says, “It’s going to be okay. I have men everywhere. She got onto the elevator, and she never got off.”
For a beat that turns into two, I just sit there, trying to process what I’m being told, trying to dig myself out of that hole. “Holy fuck,” I curse, running a hand through my hair. “How did she not get off?”
“She called Joey as she was stepping onto the elevator car and told him that her mother wanted her to join her at a coffee shop. She told him to meet her at the back door on the street and then the connection went dead.”
I draw in a deep breath, tamping down the mix of anger and adrenaline surging through me. I have to stay calm and clear-headed. That’s how I get Alana back, not by freaking the hell out. “Could she have been faster than him? Did she leave before he got there?”
His expression is grim. “Adam was already at the backdoor, and she never exited the building.”
“What about camera footage?”
“The camera feed went dark the minute she got on the elevator to head downstairs. We know she traveled up instead of down. We don’t know if she punched the wrong button or if the system was in override, at least not yet. We’re searching the building.”
“Do we call the police?”
“We’ll break rules to find her,” he says. “They won’t. They complicate things.”
“No police then. Where’s her mother right now?”
“Alana believed she was waiting for her at Mama’s Coffee. That’s what Alana told Joey.”
“That’s a block from where we sit,” I say. “And that bitch clearly lured her onto that elevator. She knows what’s happening. Any parent capable of doing so is capable of far more. I know this from experience.” I exit the SUV and start walking, and by the time I’ve taken a few steps, Blake is beside me.
“Damion—”
I cut off the intended warning in his tone. “I won’t kill her in public,” I promise him, but I don’t go so far as to tell him I won’t kill her at all. “Go find Alana, Blake. You’re wasting time she might not have.”
“I have twenty men on this, but if you end up in jail, what the fuck good will you do it, Damion?”
“If she dies because you’re babysitting me instead of hacking and managing the situation when you could be saving her, you can consider me your worst nightmare. I want you on this, not twenty other men. Do you understand me?”
He curses and calls out, “Savage! Go with him!”
I’m another three strides closer to the coffee shop when Savage steps to my side. “Who are we killing?”
I don’t hesitate. “My father, before this is over,” I flick him a look, “and if any of you try to stop me, you won’t like the results.”
“You’ll get no right versus wrong lecture from me, man. Sometimes the world is a better place when some asshole is dead. I’m the guy who gets that, which is why Blake sends me on the jobs where an asshole might need to die.”
I reach the door of the coffee shop, and I’ve already dismissed Savage. I don’t need him to deal with the assholes and bastards. My father made damn sure I was capable as hell. Once I’m inside the tightly-packed shop, I scan the meager space and find Alana’s mother sitting at a corner table, dressed to kill in a designer dress that I suspect Alana’s money bought for her. She’s talking on the phone, her lips parted, pearly white teeth exposed as she laughs at whatever she hears—as if nothing is happening but good things and joy.
She’s such a fucking self-entitled bitch.
I begin to close the space between me and her, and she must sense my nearness, or feel the pulse of my anger radiating through the room because her gaze jerks to mine and her eyes go wide with recognition. She speaks to the person on the phone and quickly hangs up.
Her spine straightens as if she’s steeling herself for the battle she knows is coming. Because she set her daughter up today. I claim the seat next to her. She angles my direction, her smooth skin pinched with pink. “What are you doing here?”
Interesting that she isn’t asking me where Alana is right now when she’s supposedly expecting her.
“You tell me, mommy dearest,” I say. “Because she got on the elevator in your building to come and see you, and never got off. Where the fuck is she?”
“Language,” she chides. “Do not talk with such repugnant language in my presence. Show me some respect.”
“The same kind you showed your dead husband when you fucked my father and came back for more?” I lean in closer. “He’ll kill her, just like he did him. What part of that do you not understand? Or do you just not care?”